An Alternative History of "Pop" Music: Part 3, 2004 -

[jamiefairlie]

Mark Fry - Leave Me Where I Am

https://youtu.be/PD_aFsL1DxY



Now, is this a new contender for longest gap in chart entries? His last was in 1972, so I make that 42 years!

From "South Wind, Clear Sky"

"For all its finely honed arrangements, and the translucence of its recording, South Wind, Clear Sky is still very much the work of the man who made Dreaming With Alice; the mature Mark Fry's feeling for wonderment and magic, for the dreamlike and the innocently surreal, is just as pervasive, and persuasive"

[jamiefairlie]

Mode Moderne - Severed Heads

https://youtu.be/ZbpjLc4wJI8




From "Occult Delight"

"The vocals always seem distant, adding to the ambience of the album as a whole. The guitar is bright and ranges from setting an atmospheric mood to providing riffs that help propel the songs along. This bright, twangy tone present throughout the album is very distinctive and essential to it's sound. The bass is the driving backbone of many of the songs, providing a strong and complementing part to each and every song"

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Mark Fry - Leave Me Where I Am

Now, is this a new contender for longest gap in chart entries? His last was in 1972, so I make that 42 years!

Almost, but not quite! Bill Fay is still the reigning champ with his sabbatical of 45 years.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Billy Vera & Evie Sands - I've Had Enough of That Girl

Evie Sands shoulda been a contender, right up there with the likes of yer Dusty's, but business wranglings beyond her control put paid to that. Fortunately, she's now recognised as the great singer she is. Some more info below...

Evie Sands is an American singer-songwriter. She began her careeer as a teenager in the mid-1960s. After a rocky start, she eventually found chart success in 1969 with her version of Chip Taylor's Any Way That You Want Me, before retiring from performing in 1979 to concentrate on writing and production.

Sands experienced a UK-led surge in cult popularity beginning in the 1990s. In 2014 she released the album Queen of Diamonds/Jack of Hearts, a collaboration with musician Billy Vera. The album consists of songs written by Chip Taylor, whose hits include the aforementioned Any Way That You Want Me, as well as Wild Thing, I Can't Let Go and Angel of the Morning (Sands was the first artist to record the latter, although her version failed to chart).

Perennial pub quiz trivia: Chip Taylor is the brother of actor Jon Voight.

[jamiefairlie]

Mogwai - No Medicine For Regret

https://youtu.be/z2elJtgY6h8




From "Rave Tapes"

" it is an elaborate and intelligent album from a group that isn't interested in grabbing their listeners by the scruff of their collective neck anymore; instead, today's Mogwai are purveyors of nuance and subtlety, and fine ones at that."

[jamiefairlie]

Oddfellow's Casino - The lighthouse keeper

https://youtu.be/NzAaFch3ybY




From "The Water Between Us "

"Musically, Oddfellow's Casino deals in tuneful, anglocentric and mildly experimental electro-acoustic pop that joins the dots between Pentangle and The Pet Shop Boys, Basil Kirchin and British Sea Power. There are echoes too of the literate, introverted indie of Animals That Swim or The Lilac Time. "

[jamiefairlie]

Owl John - Songs About Roses

https://youtu.be/A7YEypyvr9M




Pseudonym of Scott Hutchison, singer of Frightened Rabbit.

From their self-titled debut, and only, album

"Owl John' is a sturdy and heartening collection and an absolutely worthy addition to a much-adored back-catalogue. It leaps comfortably from boisterous pop songs full of life, to poignant folk songs from the heart. From the cold of Scotland, to the heat of LA. From one life to another"

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Mac DeMarco - Let Her Go

Mac DeMarco is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer who has so far released six studio albums. His style of music has been described as "blue wave" and "slacker rock", or, by DeMarco himself, "jizz jazz".

DeMarco's style employs the use of flat drums (little or no reverberation or dynamic range compression), chorus and vibrato effects on the guitar and a generally lazy atmosphere a la soft rock records, with muted and low frequency bass guitars.

[Norton Canes]

TEEN - Rose 4 U

From their 2014 album The Way And Colour.

A song of quite literally two halves.

[Norton Canes]

Little Boots - Taste It

From her 2014 EP Business Pleasure

Go on, watch it. You'll never see The Generation Game in quite the same way.

[Norton Canes]

Neneh Cherry - Blank Project

From her 2014 album of the same name.

It might have taken her 25 years to come up with a decent follow-up to Raw Like Sushi but when she did it was more than worth the wait.

[Brundle-Fly]

M.B. Motorcyycle Enthusiast - The Eccentronic Research Council. Released on Desolate Spools in 2014.





The sound of Sheffield 2014? Probably not, but it would've been nice.

The Eccentronic Research Council are vintage synth enthusiasts Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer from Sheffield with actress Maxine Peake.

[jamiefairlie]

Rachael Dadd - Bounce The Ball

https://youtu.be/AQr8OmCLWXM



an English folk and lo-fi musician based in Bristol

From "We Resonate "

"Two years in the making, We Resonate is a triumph. Rachael's often sweet angelic voice is encapsulating and wholly listenable. Taking folk as a base, she fuses it with Japanese influences and African rhythms to concoct her own very unique style."

[jamiefairlie]

Real Estate - Past Lives

https://youtu.be/1vk1I5wyPiA



From "Atlas"

"The chords and arrangements on Atlas are the densest Real Estate have ever attempted, shading their sunshine into something palpably more mysterious, like a sunset in inclement weather"

[jamiefairlie]

Ruu Campbell - Magic Tree

https://youtu.be/T9WjlTxRjNY



Ex-singer with Leftfield

From his only album "Heartsong "

"It's an album, which even if not all sunny side up, is filled with bucolic, organic, folkish delights built on naturalism, transforming the birdsong, dappled sunlight, trees gentling rustling in the zephyrs that fill the lungs with fresh, scented air into song"

[Butchers Blind]

The Legal Matters - Rite Of Spring

A band made up of the talents of Chris Richards, Andy Reed and Keith Klingensmith, this is their debut album of sublime, melodic, sunny guitar pop mixed with amazing vocal harmonies.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Trembling Bells & Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Lay It Down

Trembling Bells were a Glasgow-based folk rock group formed in 2008 by drummer Alex Neilson, a musician with a history of free and improvised playing with several artists. They split in 2018.

Trembling Bells' music references late 1960s psychedelia and British folk revival acts such as Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band. Lavinia Blackwall's soaring vocal style has drawn comparisons to Sandy Denny and We Five's Beverly Bivens.

Between 2012 and 2014 they occasionally collaborated with American singer-songwriter Will Oldham, aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy. This is their version of a soulful country pop song originally recorded by Lonnie Mack in 1971.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Gulp - Game Love

The project of Guto Pryce, bass player with Super Furry Animals, and his wife Lindsey Leven, producing gently psychedelic pop songs featuring vintage synths and Leven's mellifluous vocals. From their debut album Season Sun.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Mini Mansions - Death is a Girl

A supergroup of sorts, the three members of Mini Mansions formed part of Sparks' live band around the time of the Hippopotamus album. The band's playful pop songs are the work of QOTSA bassist Michael Schuman with Taylor Parkford and Zach Dawes, both additional live members of Arctic Monkeys among others. This track was released as a single in 2014, ahead of their second album The Great Pretenders, released the following year.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Roddy Frame - Postcard

Presumably a nod to the name of a certain record label, this slightly West Coast-flavoured track comes from the Aztec Camera man's 2014 album Seven Dials.

[jamiefairlie]

Scott Matthews - The Clearing

https://youtu.be/ypRkLsUgLZI



Born in 1976, Scott Matthews is a singer/songwriter from Wolverhampton, England

From "Home part 1"

"Scott's apparent ease with his skill is frightening now, but don't let this fool you, he's worked hard to get this far. The singer manages to make the instruments meld together and create a master class in original and layered folk music, all held up with his enticing vocals and beautiful words"

[jamiefairlie]

The Blue Angel Lounge - Walls

https://youtu.be/ulWx1IXYN9Y




From their final album "A Sea Of Trees"

"Their mix of psych, new wave and post-punk put them in a realm close to Nico and Joy Division, with a contemporary flair that brings to mind Interpol or later era Brian Jonestown Massacre."

[jamiefairlie]

The Drink - Dead Ringers

https://youtu.be/yzhig_MTEOI



A trio from London.

From debut album "Company "

" Frequently the songs lock into lush melodic grooves which carry Dearbhla Minogue's beautifully spectral delivery of vague, semi-conscious narrative, and the whole thing makes for a pretty delicious woozy patchwork of sounds."

[Butchers Blind]

Theatre Royal - French Riviera 1988

From their third album, We Don't Know Where We Are.
"Certain motifs are weaved in and out of the record like recurring dreams. Notably the idea that "the past is always gone"  The mission statement is clear – we're all a bit lost but we can only find our way by looking forwards."

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

The School - When I Fall in Love

Must be the third or fourth time these delightful '60s-shaped indie-poppers have appeared in the thread...

[jamiefairlie]

The Soft Hills - Road to the Sun

https://youtu.be/uN2nedwE0xw



Indie group from Seattle, formed in 2007 by singer-songwriter Garrett Hobba. Known for experimentation and harmony. The songs have a wide range of influences from folk to psychedelic to ambient.

From "Departure"

" Almost gone is the Americana feel of earlier albums; there are still some Fleet Foxes-style harmonies but the influences are more spacey and European; 'Road to the Sun' channels Pink Floyd"

[jamiefairlie]

The Twilight Sad - I Could Give You All That You Don't Want

https://youtu.be/l25t9lSaIJ0



From "Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave"

"Percussion like clockwork, lingering synth-tracks and clouds of reverb guitar tend to hang heavy over lyrics which tell of impossible romantic endeavours, long nights staying indoors and not getting much sleep"

[jamiefairlie]

Vashti Bunyan - Jellyfish

https://youtu.be/EsgOqc9o8rw



From "Heartleap "

"The entirety of Heartleap is wispy, spare, understated, and moving in its insight and honesty."

[jamiefairlie]

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[jamiefairlie]

Warpaint - Keep It Healthy

https://youtu.be/n1K6M6-YF04




From their self-titled second album

"All in all, it's as if the watery concoction of before has been distilled into a potent musical treacle--richer in atmosphere, sharper, artistically decisive and intoxicating."